


Strider Cool and Shiny Things

by keresWings



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Sadstuck, Self Harm, happy endings tho i promise, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:31:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keresWings/pseuds/keresWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave's been hurting himself for almost as long as he can remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strider Cool and Shiny Things

He wasn’t that old when he started hurting himself.

Dave had been strifing with Bro for as long as he could hold a sword, but it took a bit longer than that for him to enjoy getting hurt. He wasn’t good enough to fend off the blows, so he deserved the pain. It was a logical conclusion to make. So logical, that he thought Rose would be proud of him.

It wasn’t long before he took it outside of strifes. He would pinch his arm if he was at school and got a bad mark on a test, he would hit his head on the wall at home until he passed out. He would punch and hit and abuse himself until he got in the shower the next morning and didn’t remember where half the bruises came from. So he would burn himself with the water for not being good enough to remember the lessons he had tried to teach himself the night before.

Eventually, Dave started noticing his katanas. Swords, knives, razors, anything sharp started calling Dave’s name.

The first time he cut himself, it hurt way too much and he quickly dabbed up the blood and decided he’d never do it again. He placed everything back where he found it and went out for a regularly scheduled strife.

A few days after that, he can’t help himself and he’s staring at the scalpel he stole from the biology lab. He hadn’t been stupid about it - he’d boiled and burned off god knows what the blade had been in, and now it’s sitting in his hand, sharp and gleaming and whispering _“Yes, Dave, take me now, push me into your skin and sing with the pain,”_ and that’s exactly what Dave did.

It still hurt, but he welcomed that hurt and he dived into the pain and swam in it. The pain became his everything and he didn’t even bother to care when the blood dripped off his wrist and put little brown spots on his jeans. It was perfect and he wanted it again. So he pressed the blade against his skin again and it parted so perfectly that he didn’t want it to ever stop. He deserved this, and it was perfect in how it didn’t judge him.

He started wearing longer sleeves, despite the Texan heat. Bro never questioned his decisions before, and this wasn’t an exception. Dave started spending more and more time in his room with his blade, which had become his best friend, his lover, and his tormenter. Pretty red lines marched up and down his legs, his stomach, his chest, his arms. He started paying more attention to his ribs, because even shallow cuts hurt the most there, but he’d always end up going back to his wrists, almost nostalgic.

He’d laugh if he realized exactly how good his poker face had become now that he didn’t smile unless his scalpel was running across his skin. What a perfect coolkid.

His pesterchum was filling up with notes from his friends, but he could never bring himself to talk to them.

\-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

GT: dave?  
GT: dave i know you’re there.  
GT: c’mon dave why won’t you talk to us? it’s been months now and all i’ve heard from you has been on your blog.  
GT: i’m always gonna be here if you need to talk, dave …  
GT: talk to you later i guess.

\-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] stopped pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

GG: dave seriously where have you been??  
GG: we havent heard from you in ages!  
GG: please come back to us :( we miss you!!

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] stopped pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

TT: Dave, I understand that you are going through a rough time right now.  
TT: But hiding from your friends won’t help you.  
TT: In fact, it will only make it worse.  
TT: We won’t judge you, Dave; we never do.  
TT: If you don’t want to talk to us, please, try talking to your Bro, or perhaps one of your real life friends at school, or even a teacher.  
TT: We really are worried, Dave.  
TT: Please, let us help you. We care about you.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] stopped pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ! --

He’d have to give up eventually, he knew that. Rose was right. But he still lay in bed every night with the sharpest object he had and a towel to catch the blood.

One day after school, Bro banged on Dave’s closed door.

“Roof. Now,” he said. Dave sighed and grabbed his sword. His heart wasn’t in strifes anymore; he just wanted to go back to his room and add another cut to his collection.

Bro greeted Dave with a downwards hacking blade, which Dave blocked and returned as a sideways sweep.

“What’s been going on, little man?” Bro asked. Dave remained stoic.

“Nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing. I’ve been pestered by your friends to talk to you. Did you realize it’s been two months since you last talked to them?”

Dave didn’t reply and silence fell, except for the occasional ring of steel on steel.

“Is it girl trouble?”

Dave barked out a humourless laugh. “No.”

“How about boy trouble?”

“It’s not boy trouble either.”

Bro flash stepped and got around Dave’s defences, slicing the front of his shirt wide open. The fabric fell away, showing dark scars and bright red lines. Bro stopped.

“Dave …”

Dave dropped his sword and clutched his shirt together. “Fuck off,” he snapped, and turned and headed for the door. Bro flash stepped again and stood in front of it.

“No, little man. You’re explaining this,” he demanded. Dave felt a surge of hatred. He just wanted to be left alone! There was nothing wrong with him!

Bro reached towards Dave and gently opened his shirt back up, tracing the scars and yesterday’s cuts on his ribs and stomach.

“How long?” he asked Dave, his eyes serious behind his shades. “How long have I not noticed this?”

Dave shrugged. “A year? Maybe? Probably longer. I didn’t really keep track of when I started.”

“Fuck.” Bro pulled Dave towards him, into a hug. “I’m so sorry, little man. I should’ve been there for you.”

After a moment, Bro pulled away and Dave noticed his cheeks were wet, tears leaking from behind those obnoxiously pointed shades. He put his hand up and tried to wipe it away.

“I’m fine man,” he said. “I’ve got it under control. I only give myself what I deserve, nothing more.”

That just made Bro cry harder, shit, no, that’s not how it was supposed to work; it was supposed to reassure him.

“What did I do that made you think you deserve this?” Bro asked. He hugged him again.

“Nothing, Bro, honest,” Dave said, patting his brother’s back. “Seriously. I just figured it out for myself.”

Bro leaned back and took off his sunglasses. He took off those anime shades he’d never been without and just placed them on the brim of his baseball cap and looked at Dave with that creepily intense orange gaze, tears still falling.

“You don’t deserve to hurt, Dave. You never have. You’re my brother, and god fucking damn it, I love you.”

When he looked back on it, Dave wasn’t entirely sure how long they spent on that roof, clinging to each other. But he remembered how Bro didn’t let him go to school for the next week, how Bro had bandaged him and thrown away all his razors and knives and scalpels and just hugged him when he cried afterwards. He remembered sitting on the couch and watching all his favourite movies and marathoning his favourite TV shows as they ate chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and pizza and neither of them put on their shades once, staying in each other’s presence, because Dave needed to heal.

And he did heal. Eventually.


End file.
